Quin Hillyer
Only one delegate to the Republican National Convention appears to have suffered significant home damage from Hurricane Gustav.
He also happens to be the only delegate whose father suffered in North Vietnamese “re-education camps” for years after John McCain himself was released. He also happens to have completely lost his home in Hurricane Katrina.
He also happens to be the unopposed Republican nominee — it becomes official Saturday — for Congress in Louisiana’s Second Congressional District, for the seat now held by disgraced “Dollar Bill” Jefferson, now under indictment for bribery in the incident that led to federal agents finding $90,000 in cash hidden in Jefferson’s freezer. Jefferson has a tough primary for renomination on Saturday.
The delegate/candidate is Joseph Cao, who emigrated to the United States from South Vietnam in 1975 at age 8, as his father — a South Vietnamese army officer — was suffering in a Vietcong prison. He believes, and it appears to be correct, that he is the only Vietnamese refugee ever to be the official congressional nominee of a major American party.
Cao is a former Jesuit and member of the National Advisory Council for the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, and a former adjunct professor of philosophy at Loyola University of New Orleans. Now a lawyer, married with two children, he is a mainstay of the Vietnamese community that lives in the low-lying section of the Crescent City known as New Orleans East.
“After Katrina, it was the Vietnamese community that was first to stand up their devastated neighborhood again, and they did it without government assistance,” said Louisiana delegate Fenn French, a fellow New Orleanian. “Joseph seems like one of these good-hearted, salt-of-the-earth guys.”
When Gustav threatened, he cancelled his own flight to the convention and packed his family in the car to drive all the way to Minneapolis. A neighbor has since called him to say that his house has a foot and a half of water inside, and is “in pretty bad shape.”
But for now Cao says he is thrilled. Because McCain underwent such a similar experience to his father’s, on behalf of his homeland, Cao said that McCain is the hero both for him and his now-wheelchair-bound father.
“I met McCain while he was down in New Orleans a few weeks ago,” Cao said, smiling broadly. “I am very happy.”
